The time Australians spent online in December increased 3.4%, as consumers flocked to retail-related websites and apps searching for deals, as Open AI saw the largest audience growth, according to Ipsos iris.
Open AI, owners of ChatGPT, saw the largest audience growth among the top 100 consumer websites and apps. This was followed by Temu, Mastercard, Shop App, Afterpay, Doordash, Big W, Dan Murphy’s, Target Australia, and Woolworths’ gift cards.
The chart from January to December shows audience growth of each of the Top 10 sites and apps for 2023 over the 12-month period. In December, retail website and app audiences maintained the record highs reached in November.
Ipsos iris showed that overall, in December, Australians aged 14+ spent more than 3.8 hours a day online, up 3.4% on November and totalling 117 hours for the month.
The most consumed website and app categories in December were technology (21 million) and social networking at 21 million, followed by search engines (20.9 million), retail and commerce (20.7 million) and entertainment (20.6 million).
The data found Energy & Utilities were the fastest growing category in December, rising by 11.8% compared to November. Events & Attractions category saw the highest audience all year (up 7%) as Australians sought information about things to do over the Christmas/summer break. In comparison, the Games category (up 5.2%) also had its highest audience for the year in December.
Major global and local news events continued to fuel online reading of news sites.
News.com.au ranked number one in Australian digital news brand for 2023, holding the top spot for 12 consecutive months according to latest rankings from Ipsos iris.
The News Corp news site delivered an audience of 12.614 million in December with a margin of 1.258 million ahead of the closest competitor. The outlet’s highly engaged audience reached one in two online Australians with average time spent of 27 minutes per person, according to the Ipsos iris data.
Editor-in-chief Lisa Muxworthy said: “It is a credit to my incredible team that news.com.au was the most-read news website in Australia every month of 2023.
“And while it is great we ended the year in that number-one spot – and not just nationally, but in all states measured by Ipsos – we never take it for granted and will work hard this year to ensure we deliver the news that matters, and reach audiences in new and innovative ways.”
Weather events such as tropical cyclone Jasper, the deadly storms in Southeast Queensland, celebrity news including actor Matthew Perry’s autopsy results, broadcaster Alan Jones’s sex scandal accusations and the deaths of Bill Granger and Ryan O’Neil, plus the resignation of Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, the Bruce Lehrmann defamation trial against Network 10, the Sydney to Hobart yacht race, and HSC and VCE results saw almost 20.4 million people use a news website or app in December, slightly down on the peak news consumption month of November.
The news events in Queensland in December saw Queensland-based news websites and apps record significant audience increases compared to November, bucking the overall trend for news.
The News category includes audience and time spent online on both general news and broader news content, including weather, sport, lifestyle, entertainment, and business news.